The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and do not constitute prior art.
A problem associated with medical devices of any kind is that of transmitting sensitive electronic data adequately securely between the medical devices themselves or between a medical device and a non-medical device. The non-medical device may be an evaluation device, for example. A computer system may be used for this, for example, whereby data transmitted to the device can be evaluated for subsequent output via a display device or printer, for example. A personal computer, for example, can be used for this.
Cryptographic methods, for example, may be used for secure transmission between devices of this kind. They are used to encrypt the electronic data being transmitted. The algorithms used for encryption and decryption can be identical. The encryption method is referred to as symmetrical if identical secret keys are constantly used for encryption and decryption. Cryptographic methods with different keys for encryption and decryption are referred to as asymmetric. These include, for example, the method whereby the transmitter of electronic data uses a public key of the recipient for encryption and the recipient uses its secret, non-public, so-called private key for decryption.